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Ontario snapping turtle endangered yet hunted

By Mary OrmsbyFeature Writer

Sat., Feb. 18, 2012

The York Regional police officers thought they’d interrupted a drug shipment during the routine traffic stop.

The car, travelling the back roads of Whitchurch-Stouffville, 50 kilometres northeast of Toronto, smelled dank, swampy. In it, the two men — one with an outstanding warrant out against him — were nervous. Their clothes were wet. Large tote boxes filled the vehicle, recalls York Regional police Constable Mark Hanna, who suspected a grow-op crew was transporting plants.

Some fear the snapping turtle, which first emerged as a distinct animal around 90 million years ago, may be headed for extinction. (Tony Bock / Toronto Star)

Then Hanna heard the throaty “ribbit, ribbit” of frogs.

Even odder? The stash inside those damp boxes.

“I’m expecting when you open up these totes that there’s going to be marijuana in there,” says Hanna, recalling the Oct. 9, 2002, incident.

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“I mean, when a turtle pokes it head out, it’s like, ‘Surprise!’”

The officers had uncovered a wildlife heist. The poachers who’d plundered the Lake Scugog area had 10 live snapping turtles, 123 bullfrogs and two Midland painted turtles — animals likely destined for restaurant tables or the underground exotic pet industry.

It was a theft that also highlighted the vulnerability of the Ontario snapping turtle, a popular target of poachers and a creature at the hub of a hunters-versus-protectionists debate: the ancient, armoured snapping turtle is on the Canadian and provincial endangered species lists — yet it is legally hunted in Ontario.

“These turtles are already on an endangered species list — but they’re on a hunting list, as well. It’s kind of a conflict,” Dunlop says of the only turtle the natural resources ministry considers a game reptile.

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“It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Dunlop’s presentation is expected a day after the Feb. 21 release of a report that updates the impact of snapping turtle threats. The document is co-authored by Ontario Nature, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre.

Some conservationists fear the slow-moving, ever-chomping creature that inhabits Ontario’s wetlands and waterways may be on a path to extinction, a fate hastened by the hunt. One of the snapping turtle’s quirks is it relies almost exclusively on its oldest members as long-term breeders — the same members that are popular with legal and illegal harvesters for their large size.

Currently there are restrictions on how, when and where snapping turtles are hunted but hauls are not monitored. A recreational fishing licence is required and catches are supposed to be for personal consumption.

John Urquhart of Ontario Nature says a hunting ban isn’t the sole solution but it would be a critical step in the government acknowledging the animal’s future is at risk.

“Even if we ban the hunt completely, the snapping turtle still has a grim outlook,” says Urquhart.

“So for us to be intentionally killing snapping turtles, and making hunting a legal thing to do to a species on the endangered species list, is unacceptable in my opinion as a biologist.”

Until now, the staying power of a reptile that first emerged as a distinct animal around 90 million years ago has been remarkable.

A 40-year snapping turtle study, a century-old egg-laying mother, Internet turtle trafficking, a record sentence for a Toronto-area poacher and a slim family tree are all part of Chelydra serpentina’s survival story since the days of the dinosaur.

That was 39 years ago. B7 was still laying eggs last year. B7 may be at least 100 years old.

“(B7) has not had a single offspring get out of that nest — not to survive to be a mature turtle, but to get out of the nest,” says Brooks, noting foxes, raccoons and skunks raid nests. Cold temperatures also prevent hatching.

(However, human intervention allowed some B7 babies to live. Brooks’ crews rescued 80 eggs from two nests, hatched them in a lab, tagged and released them. Only one has been spotted, a female who at 16 is now breeding.)

Even in Algonquin Park, where turtle hunting is prohibited, the survival probability from egg to maturity is 0.07 per cent, based on Brooks’ four decades of research. That means for every 10,000 eggs laid, only seven babies survive to adulthood. In addition, snapping turtles are late-blooming breeders who don’t reach sexual maturity until they are in their late teens.

So 90 million years later, why are they still here?

“They’re kind of like bet hedgers,” Brooks explains.

“They spread their reproduction, as wimpy as it is, over a long period of time and over repeated bouts. Some turtles might lay eggs over a period of 45 to 50 years and it only takes one successful clutch to make it all worthwhile. Other animals put all their eggs in one basket to breed once and die, like salmon.”

Brooks is a member of two advisory groups (the Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario and the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) that in 2009 prompted the provincial government (under the Endangered Species Act) and the feds (under the Species at Risk Act) to list the snapping turtle as a species of special concern. That designation is the least-serious classification, behind “endangered” (most critical) and “threatened” (No. 2 on the list).

Adult females, in particular, are at risk when they roam roads looking for the perfect sand-and-gravel areas in which to dig their nests. Each year, Brooks said hundreds of females are killed by cars. Sometimes deliberately.

Brooks’ research from Algonquin Park and elsewhere in Ontario indicates the snapping turtle population is in decline. He says when game kills from hunting are factored in, even a 1 per cent increase in adult mortality (over natural rates of death) will drastically hasten a future drop in numbers.

Brooks says it would take just two human-related deaths a year to wipe out a community of 200 healthy snapping turtles over time. The legal bag limit in Ontario is two per person per day.

Together, the commercial food and pet markets eat into turtle populations around the world. Some of this activity is legal. In Toronto’s east end, a frozen soft-shell turtle imported from China costs $17.62 per kilogram at T&T Supermarket near Cherry Beach. The offshore turtle is exempt from provincial legislation.

“It’s not just snapping turtles but other species of turtles, as well,” says Miller.

He studies Internet sales of wildlife — the majority of which are live turtles for collectors. When Miller contacts buyers, he says most are unaware of Ontario laws protecting indigenous breeds.

“Snapping turtles may only be captured by hand or by means of a box or funnel trap that does not injure or kill the turtle. The upper shell of a snapping turtle may not be removed from the carcass until immediately before it is prepared for consumption.”

Commercial thieves, however, are greedy and in a hurry. They set poaching lines with baited lures. They may wait a day or two before returning to drag in their easy prey. Thieves also simply scoop them off the roads or pick up hibernating turtles if they wade into frigid water.

The pair stopped in York Region may have set lines and waded into the water in order to corral so many animals. One of those men, Sun Huynh of Toronto, was fined $10,000 in 2003 for illegally transporting native amphibians and reptiles.

Perhaps the most infamous repeat poacher is Toronto-based Pak Sun Chung. In 2009, Chung was handed a record amount of jail time for a Canadian poacher when a Sarnia court sentenced him to 106 days plus an additional nine months for two federal offences.

Chung’s prey included snapping turtles.

If the snapping turtle disappears from the wetlands after a 90-million-year stay, how will that affect the planet, if at all?

Even reptile experts like Brooks say there’s much to learn about the pungent, scaled critter “and I’ve only studied them for 40 years.” What is clear, however, is the beast’s ecosystem value.

“They’re like little plows that move through the wetlands slowly. They’ll walk along the bottom and push mud aside to create little channels that small animals, like frogs, small reptiles, fish and even muskrats will use to go about their daily lives,” explains Ontario Nature’s Urquhart.

“They are also little garbage disposals. They’ll eat dead animals, fish. They also fill a role as a weed eater, eating plants around their ecosystem. They clean up the environment, in that respect, because they’re omnivores.”

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